


Another Woman

by sonshineandshowers



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Adultery, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Definitely Just A Cold, F/M, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Pre-Arrest, Pre-Series, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:07:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23201413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonshineandshowers/pseuds/sonshineandshowers
Summary: Many things stop in Jessica's life, and she knows something isn't right. But it's something she'll swallow and try to live with. Until she can't get enough distance. Pre-Arrest.For Bad Things Happen Bingo prompt Definitely Just a Cold.
Relationships: Jessica Whitly/Martin Whitly
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Another Woman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jameena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jameena/gifts).



The neck kisses stop. Curling her toes in the middle of the day turns into coming to bed later and later at night until she sees the dawn before him. She questions whether there are more mistresses behind medicine.

The hugs stop. The rich undertone of expensive cologne trades for cheap perfume. He dresses for appearances with people who are not her. A shell he sheds and reshapes when he’s beside her.

Any contact at all stops. Working in the basement becomes an everyday occurrence, even when the nanny has taken away the kids. Though she has the band on her finger, she’s still convinced a person can develop a cold. A frigid together, yet not that toils in her stomach with cognac.

Then the bleeding stops. She convinces herself it’s a fluke of stress and in a few more days, it’ll be back. The only visitor she wants in her house that never comes. She waits and waits, thinking it’ll change the outcome, but it doesn’t.

He’s indecisive. Keeps saying he’ll do what she wants on a trip to the Hamptons when all he’s cared about is himself the whole time. She looks to him for direction, and it’s nowhere to be found.

She wants a drink, which is perfectly okay because there will be no baby. No screaming to wake to at 3AM, no diapers to turn the house into a gas station bathroom. No person clinging to her when he’s off - gone.

They wind up at the club bar because he doesn’t pick anything else. He flips and grabs her wrist when she orders, upset she’d think to put alcohol to her lips, more curious for the taste of absinthe than motherhood. How he knows, she has no idea. Then he retreats with a cheshire smile on his face and reiterates, “whatever you want.”

But it isn’t what she wants. It’s whatever he strings her on with for a moment until she snaps into his back and retreats to start the climb again. They can’t ever be equidistant, he traversing flats, she mountains.

When she’d gotten pregnant the second time, he was more interested in other women than her. Was even less present when he learned it was a girl. There wouldn’t be a third.

So when the nanny takes the kids to the park for the day, she gets a ride to the clinic. Makes a decision she can live with when she’s stuck with another she could live without.

He crawls into bed beside her and says, “So powerful, Jessie.”

The glint in his eye reflects off her mind. He knows. Somehow.

Why can’t he go back to the basement? To the revolving door of girls for his company instead of taking up space in her bed? She wants sleep. Not…this.

* * *

It burns, the combination of bourbon and coffee covering her lack of rest. “Focus on your kids,” her mother said.

But it’s hard to unsee everything else. Every smell that isn’t her husband binds to her nose. She misses stray touches of compassion when they’re reserved for someone else. The taste of exploration with another. Connection to someone other than herself.

The house starts to get too quiet, and she welcomes the kids back. But she sips a little too much brandy, and Malcolm steers Ainsley to her room instead of the couch. “Princesses or pirates?” she hears from the door, her daughter steadfastly replying, “none of them.”

When she’s almost asleep in bed, “The drink makes you a bad mother,” drifts over the back of her neck and freezes her skin.

 _How could he even think to tell her that?_ she wants to scream. But the kids are sleeping down the hall, and waking them proves him right. His wants are a sickness overtaking their whole family, and he. will. _not_. be. right.

She puts the girls into boxes under lock and key in the depths of her mind. Perhaps she can follow his lead and put on a face in her vanity. Drink enough until they’re quiet. 

But they scream to get out. Curdling cries that try her sanity when her kids need her put together. As he threatens to pull them apart.

* * *

When they lead Martin away, her mind loops on _I thought it was other women_. _It was other women_. A cold she could handle, not…this.

Ainsley’s cries of “Where’s daddy?” are a stark contrast to Malcolm’s nothing. At least an infant’s not screaming in the background. Not born into whatever hell they’ve fallen into.

She doesn’t understand, and couldn’t possibly explain it to her kids. No “I knew dad was a monster, and I just kept harboring him.” No “I thought he was fooling around with other women, not killing any sex and age he could get his hands on.” In _her_ basement. Had he laid a hand on _her_ kids?

He wouldn’t have. But the chill of murder creeps around her spine where ignored behaviors led to an unknown number of people dead. She had some responsibility in the matter, didn’t she?

Her son can’t tell her if he’s been hurt, and her daughter’s bawling at anything she says. She can’t let the nanny take them if they’re like this, but she also needs them to go if she wants to drink.

 _Whatever she wants_. None of this.

No more Martin.

And yet under the covers, amidst the depths of the basement, in the eyes and calls from her kids - there he is. Waiting for her to follow.

But she cuts the line. Falls to where stiff drinks catch her. And tries. For her kids.

He in a cage, and she in her house - it’s not enough distance.

Twenty years still isn’t enough distance.

“Mother,” Malcolm calls, bringing her attention back to where he’s refilling her glass of bourbon. “Luisa asked if you’d like any dessert.”

“No - no thank you.” She smiles to Luisa and takes her drink. “I think it’s time I head to bed.”

She leaves Malcolm and Ainsley behind, talking and eating lemon jello at the table. “No, I’m the dragon, not the princess,” drifts up the stairs.

* * *

_fin_


End file.
